1 Thessalonians 1:2-5: Love's Labor

2 We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, 3 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. 4 For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, 5 because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.

Target Date: Sunday, 19 December 2021

Word Study/ Translation Notes:

2 - Thanks – eucharistomen – the Greek word where we get the term “Eucharist” for the Lord’s Supper – an expression of thanksgiving to God.

2 - Constantly – unceasingly, without stopping.

3 – remembering before – more the meaning that they were recalling the faithfulness of the Thessalonian church rather than they were remembering them in their prayers.

The word before means “in the presence of”.

3 – work of faith – ergou – common word for work, esp. in James 2. This phrase is in the genitive (possessive) case or ablative (source, proceeding from) case, as both are indicated in the suffix change of on to ou. In either case, the phrase could easily be translated “faith’s work” or “work produced by faith”, implying either the possessive or the ablative idea as both would be consistent with Scripture.

Both work and faith are SINGULAR, indicating a singular work of their common faith, since the “your” is plural.

The word “your” is likewise genitive or ablative, the faith possessed by them that produces work originating with their faith.

3 – labor of love – kopou – toil, trouble, bother – this is not just a result like ergou, but it is the effort put into love (agape).

Thoughts on the Passage:

Faith is based on the assurance that God has acted for his people’s salvation in Christ; love is the present (and continuing) relationship between God and his people through Christ; hope is bound up with the conviction that “he who has begun a good work” in them “will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil 1:6).

That, says Lightfoot on the passage, is the natural order. “Faith rests on the past; love works in the present; hope looks to the future.”

YOUR is plural, while the work of faith is singular. There is an inherent unity in this state, even in the midst of withering persecution.

Labor of love –

The difference between ἔργον (work) and κόπος (labour) is that between effect and cause.

For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another - 1 John 3:11

But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. – 1 John 3:17-18

Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22 and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.23 This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. – 1 John 3:21-23

Love that begins in the Spirit is different from love that the world knows:

Much of the difference is summarized in 1 Corinthians 13

You can make two equal errors with love:

“Love is a feeling” – This is to relegate love to an emotion, even a complex one, and mark it solely as something we feel.

This is the common idea of “romantic love” – and it includes the idea that this bare emotion is the highest state of our heart.

Even whole churches have been captured by this heresy, proclaiming “God is love”, and therefore anything done in the name of love to be good.

To the point they advocate and endorse sinful behavior, like the misguided “love” between two people that causes them to engage in homosexuality.

By the way, sex is not love either. It should grow out of a single, committed, MARRIED relationship between two people of the opposite sex.

“Love is not a feeling” – This is more vogue in our modern church, where love is something one DOES rather than something one feels.

But this leads us to a different sin – dispassionate service.

We think we can love someone without any feelings of love toward them.

Or worse, we think we can love another and love ourselves MORE. Take care of ourselves FIRST.

We fear this hypothetical burnout that might come from too much love – and it is all a lie.

If your labor is coming from love as granted by God’s Holy Spirit, those labors bear little resemblance to a frenetic compulsion to please others.

The ones in the most danger of burning out are, if they will examine their hearts, not the ones who are laboring out of love, but those who are laboring TO BE LOVED.

These are the ones who are not laboring because they love the person, but are laboring so other people will love them.

We don’t do a good job at all in the old saying “Hate the sin and love the sinner”.

We don’t hate the sin, particularly in ourselves.

We too often focus on the sins of others, recognizing them right off.

But we are slower to ask, “What is it in ME that is displeasing to God?”

Sure, we will freely admit we are not perfect.

We will confess that at times we commit sins.

But our concept of SIN is too limited:

Because we focus on gross violations of the Moral Law, or, rather, 4 or 5 of the ten commandments.

But our Law is greater, higher, than the mere fact that we have not committed murder this week.

Too many Christians stop there – at the same place the Jews did as they were reading and teaching this same Law.

But as Jesus showed us in His Sermon on the Mount, those external failings begin as internal failures.

Pride and self-righteousness are the enemy of all who think they understand the gospel.

Beware those great sins of the flesh that are entirely opposed to the Law of Love:

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. – 1 John 2:16

These are the same as the original temptation:

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. – Genesis 3:6

We don’t try, in many cases, to bring people to repentance with our encouragement.

And it must be encouragement, not condemnation.

If you see a brother sinning, and that sin OFFENDS you, KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT.

If their sin doesn’t immediately cause you pain or sorrow FOR THEM, you do not love them enough to correct them.

There is no way to speak the truth in love if you have no love (Ephesians 4:15).

Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this—not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way. – Romans 14:13

Speaking of the Pharisees, Jesus said: They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger. – Matthew 23:4

Are you more spiritual than the brother or sister who is sinning? PROVE IT, by excelling them in LOVE.

Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. – Romans 12:16

you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; 10 for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more - 1 Thessalonians 4:9-10

Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; [outdo] one another in [showing] honor; 11 not lagging behind in diligence - Romans 12:10-11

And we tend to gossip ABOUT people’s sin rather than come along-side them to help.

Because THAT is effort – that is TOIL. That is LABOR.

The church is eaten up with gossip. Brother talks about brother, and it is all sinful.

When do you know when you are gossiping – when does it begin?

When you have the first thought about them and their sin OUTSIDE of grief for the impact of that sin on them.

It compounds your sin to breathe the first word, even in private, to anyone else.

The Bottom Line – we don’t toil enough in love for one another.

The point of these graces (work of faith, labor of love, steadfastness of hope) is not that they are pointing to a single, specific instance. They could, without a doubt, cite multiple instances to support these graces, but the graces here indicate a sum-total, a pattern of grace that provides irrefutable evidence to the salvation of those of the Thessalonian church.

The Christians of Thessalonica are not being commended for their behavior, obedience, or faithfulness; this list is not simply an acknowledgement of their good works, nor even the result of a pattern of good works.

These are cited because they provide uncounterfeitable evidence toward the salvation and faithfulness to God of this church. Faith’s works flow only from true faith; love’s labors only from agape love. The steadfastness of their hope is not in their eventual victory, nor even their safety and security in this world – their hope remains steadfastly in the Lord Jesus Christ regardless of the world around them.

**Regarding this hope (for next week), “the world around them” is NOT simply the persecution they have experienced, not the fears stemming from that. The hope in our Lord Jesus Christ also causes us to put away our love for the things of this world, our sinful desire for gain or reputation, and our acquisition of power in favor SOLELY of the hope of standing faithful before our Lord on His Day.

Sermon Text:

This morning we come again to our text – the introduction of the epistle to the church of the Thessalonians.

Many of you may recall that we are paying special attention to verse 3 for the time being because it comprises a very broad outline for the entire letter.

Specifically, we have looked at the three Christian graces mentioned here, the three evidences of God’s work in the life of a believer: faith, love, and hope.

And you may also remember that Paul and his fellow writers have added some explanatory descriptions to each of these graces, reminding the church of the concrete actions that proceed from these graces.

They are Faith’s work, which we talked about last week.

The labor of love, which we will look at in some detail this week.

And the steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, which, if the Lord is willing, we will examine next Sunday morning.

I am concerned that to this point that I have not explained adequately what I mean by evidences of God’s work in the life of a believer or a church, and there could be misunderstanding.

First, let me make clear what this does NOT mean:

It doesn’t mean, in any way, that possessing these things – faith, love, and hope – MAKE you a Christian.

It doesn’t mean that by applying yourself to develop any of these graces will bring you to salvation at all.

This work of faith is not work that PRODUCES faith, it is work that is born OUT OF faith.

The faith is already there, the gift of God, and the work flows from it as a testimony to its presence and source.

This labor of love is not labor that simply does loving things – it is the toil, the burden that love will carry us through. More on that in a minute.

This steadfastness of hope is not simply standing strong, but having ALL our hope, everything, hanging on the faithfulness of Jesus Christ and His promises.

Taken together they represent evidence toward the assurance of salvation.

Not that you have EARNED it, but evidence you have been given it, you have received it.

It is very much the FRUIT that grows from a branch connected to the VINE of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. – John 15:5

And all three of these are focused on the Lord Jesus Christ:

The faith is in Jesus Christ.

The love originates from Him and flows through us.

The hope is in His person and promises.

And as we consider in the coming week the love that caused God to take on flesh and dwell among us,

We will examine today how we can communicate that love to the people around us.

The first thing I would highlight from our text today is the word “labor”.

The word is different from the word they used for “work” when describing the outcome of faith.

When the word for “work” was attached to “faith”, it was talking about the RESULT of faith, the OUTCOME of faith.

Meaning what faith PRODUCES.

But the “labor” that is associated with love is not solely the outcome or product of love, but also includes the monumental EFFORT and COST of love.

In other places, this word is translated “burden” and “toil.”

The “burden of love” or the “toil of love.”

So, in speaking of “Faith’s work”, that means largely the things that faith produces in us.

While they may challenge our pride or selfishness, the cost to us is comparatively small against the cost of love.

Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. – John 15:13

When Jesus summarized the Law into the greatest two commandments, He did not choose one of Ten Commandments;

He began with our LOVE for God:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. – Deuteronomy 6:5

The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” – Mark 12:31

If you are loving God and people, truly loving them, there is no commandment you could possibly break.

John, in his first epistle, identifies this as the first teaching for a believer:

For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another - 1 John 3:11

From the BEGINNING – before doctrine, before the deeper teachings of Christ – Love One Another.

How different would our churches be in this day if, after a new believer has declared their love for God, they are taught from the very first, as the most IMPORTANT thing in the church – LOVE ONE ANOTHER?

How different, how much more like the original churches, would we be if we held as unbreakable truths – truths that we covenant NEVER to break – love God and love one another?

But John was not finished in this great letter with his instruction in this:

We read later in this third chapter, verses 21-22:

Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22 and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight. – 1 John 3:21-22

If John had stopped there (or if we stop reading there), we might think he is adding something else to this list – obeying the Mosaic Law or keeping the Ten Commandments – as a guarantee that we are in the faith.

If he had stopped there, we would have been brought back around to the Law as savior, and that would have made the sacrifice of Jesus mean nothing.

But he didn’t stop there:

because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.23 This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. – 1 John 3:22-23

He wasn’t taking us to Sinai; he was taking us to the upper room.

He wasn’t taking us to Moses; he was taking us to Jesus, Who said:

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” – John 13:34-35

When Jesus spoke on the day He ascended into heaven, and gave the Great Commission to His church, saying:

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you - Matthew 28:19-20

Central to that phrase “all that I commanded you” is the NEW commandment He gave: Love One Another.

Church, your greatest commission, your highest calling, is to believe (that means: put your loving faith) in Jesus Christ, and to love one another.

Where there may be disagreements from time to time, if we love one another, we can work them out through our mutual commitment and love for each other.

Where there may be doctrinal questions that cause us friction, we can search the Scriptures for God’s answer together if we love one another above all.

So you may ask: what does it mean to love each other?

Aside from dying for someone, how do we know if we love someone?

I would point you to 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 for a description of the state of a loving heart.

It is unfortunate that this passage is too often reserved for wedding ceremonies and gains little day-to-day use between believers.

I offer a very short commentary on these elements that are found in love:

Love is patient,

The first mark of love – patience.

love is kind

Meaning easily helpful, ready to be useful.

is not jealous;

Is not looking for what they get out of the relationship.

love does not brag and is not arrogant,

Is not looking to be propped up or affirmed.

5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own,

Is not unfair or lopsided.

is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,

Is not looking for a battle or a reason for one.

6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;

Is genuinely happy for someone else when they are blessed.

7 bears all things,

“Keeps a lid on” things, doesn’t blow up.

believes all things,

“Faiths” – trusts through all things

hopes all things,

Expects God’s goodness to come through

endures all things.

Remains faithful regardless of their struggles.

These characteristics of love can certainly be applied to a marriage, but they must be practiced among God’s people.

In many of these things, this is where the Corinthian church was failing and the Thessalonian church was commended.

In the time we have remaining, I would like to suggest some errors believers (and unbelievers) make in regard to love:

1. Love is a feeling; love is an emotion.

This is the common idea of “romantic love” – those butterflies in the stomach.

But it can also be whether we think good thoughts about a person we are not romantically interested in.

There are few more dangerous ideas today because so many people have read the verse “God is love” and think that anything they do in the name of love is thereby good.

Whole churches have been captured by this heresy, declaring that even misguided “love” between two people that leads to adultery or homosexuality is ok because they were “in love.”

Make no mistake: sex is not love – it is a valuable treasure, a gift of love, to be reserved only for your husband or wife (of the opposite sex).

No, love is not good feelings alone, or even good intentions:

But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. – 1 John 3:17-18

2. Love is NOT a feeling.

Over the last half-century or so, the church has been repeatedly given the message (especially youth groups) that love is not a feeling, it is something you DO.

Sometimes people have said “love is a verb.”

And while love does indeed have labor (as we are talking about today), it is not divorced from feeling.

It would be sinful to believe we can serve someone without allowing ourselves to feel love for them.

Much of the basis for this is our own selfishness:

We think we can love someone without any emotional investment in them, without caring for them.

Or worse, we think we can love others and love ourselves more.

How many times in our modern, lazy, American world are we told that we have to take care of ourselves first?

That we have to love ourselves before we can love others.

We are told if we allow ourselves to love and care deeply for others, we will burn ourselves out.

Nonsense.

If your labor, your toil, in love is coming from God’s Holy Spirit, do you really believe you can exhaust HIS power?

No, the ones who burn out, the ones who find the price too high to love, are the ones who are loving in their own power and for their own purposes.

The ones who burn out are not the ones who are laboring out of love, but those who are laboring TO BE LOVED.

It is those who are not laboring because they love the person, but are laboring to make the person love them.

Love’s labor may be a great burden, a great toil or struggle.

It may bring you at times to a point where you are tempted to stop.

But that is just what it is – a temptation.

Love’s labor will find your strength renewed every day as love drives you to the toil, and the labor makes the person more dear than they were already.

Not feeling divorced from labor, nor toil divorced from affection:

Love is both together.

Finally, most of you have probably heard the old saying: “Hate the sin and love the sinner”

We really don’t do either particularly well.

We don’t hate the sin, particularly in ourselves.

We too often focus on the sins of others, recognizing them right off.

But we are slower to ask, “What is it in ME that is displeasing to God?”

Sure, we will freely admit we are not perfect.

We will confess that at times we commit sins.

But our concept of SIN is too limited:

Because we focus on gross violations of the Moral Law, or, rather, 4 or 5 of the ten commandments.

But our Law, the Law of Love, the Law of Christ is greater, higher, than the mere fact that we have not committed murder this week.

Too many Christians stop there – at the same place the Jews did as they were reading and teaching this same Law.

But as Jesus showed us in His Sermon on the Mount, those external failings begin as internal failures.

Pride and self-righteousness are the enemy of all who think they understand the gospel.

Beware those great sins of the flesh that are entirely opposed to the Law of Love:

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. – 1 John 2:16

These are the same as the original temptation:

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. – Genesis 3:6

And while we are oblivious to our own sin, we tend to see it immediately in others – and gossip about it.

We tend to gossip ABOUT people’s sin rather than come along-side them to help.

Because THAT is effort – that is TOIL. That is LABOR.

The church is eaten up with gossip. Brother talks about brother, and it is all sinful.

You may ask: When do you know when you are gossiping – when does it begin?

It begins when you have the first thought about them and their sin OUTSIDE of grief for the impact of that sin on them.

It compounds your own sin to breathe the first word, even in private, to anyone else.

In short, if you are talking about anyone else’s sin, and your heart is not BREAKING in grief over them, you are sinning; you are gossiping.

It is not enough to SAY your heart is breaking for them – if your heart is not truly broken for their sakes, you are not loving them.

But, you may ask, what should we do if our brother is sinning? Should we just remain silent?

The guidance of Matthew 18:15 is invaluable in understanding this:

If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private

But remember that the greatest responsibility we have for our brother or sister is to LOVE them.

And only out of that love may we correct them.

And it must be encouragement, not condemnation.

If you see a brother sinning, and that sin OFFENDS you, KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT.

If their sin doesn’t immediately cause you pain or sorrow FOR THEM, you do not love them enough to correct them.

There is no way to speak the truth in love if you have no love (Ephesians 4:15).

Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this—not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way. – Romans 14:13

Speaking of the Pharisees, Jesus said: They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger. – Matthew 23:4

Helping to bring a brother or sister to repentance is a labor of love, not an excuse to be a busybody or tattler.

In the course of our life as a church together, each one of us will see many sinful actions or behaviors in each other.

If we love each other, we can approach the sinning brother and help them find repentance.

Perhaps the sinning brother didn’t realize the sin.

Perhaps the sinning brother has already repented of the sin prior to our word.

In any case, once that repentance is found, you who have gone to him must hold on to it, and never speak of it to anyone else in a spirit of gossip.

And unfortunately, to be thorough, I have to explicitly add the following because of recent problems in our day:

If the brother or sister has committed a crime, particularly of abuse to another person, this must be reported to the proper authorities.

Too many instances of coverups of these kinds of crimes have been done by churches, and we should never allow abuse to continue.

No matter how much we love the perpetrator otherwise, our love for the victim must not fail.

Are you more spiritual than the brother or sister who is sinning? PROVE IT, by excelling them in LOVE.

Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. – Romans 12:16

you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; 10 for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more - 1 Thessalonians 4:9-10

Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; [outdo] one another in [showing] honor; 11 not lagging behind in diligence - Romans 12:10-11